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The Great Ukraine Robbery Is Not Over Yet. Ron Paul

May 17, 2024

The Great Ukraine Robbery Is Not Over Yet. Ron Paul

The ink was barely dry on President Biden’s signature transferring another $61 billion to the black hole called Ukraine, when the mainstream media broke the news that this was not the parting shot in a failed US policy. The elites have no intention of shutting down this gravy train, which transports wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy and connected class.

Reuters wrote right after the aid bill was passed that, “Ukraine’s $61 billion lifeline is not enough.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the Sunday shows after the bill was passed to say that $61 billion is “not a whole lot of money for us…” Well, that’s easy for him to say – after all it’s always easier to spend someone else’s money!

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was far from grateful for the $170 billion we have shipped thus far to his country. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine as the aid package was passed, Kuleba had the nerve to criticize the US for not producing weapons fast enough.

“If you cannot produce enough interceptors to help Ukraine win the war against the country that wants to destroy the world order, then how are you going to win in the war against perhaps an enemy who is stronger than Russia?”

How’s that for a “thank you”?

It may be understandable why the Ukrainians are frustrated. Most of this money is not going to help them fight Russia. US military aid to Ukraine has left our own stockpiles of weapons depleted, so the money is going to create new production lines to replace weapons already sent to Ukraine. It’s all about the US weapons industry. President Biden admitted as much when he said, “we are helping Ukraine while at the same time investing in our own industrial base.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s Wholesale Robbery!

December 23, 2022

It’s Wholesale Robbery!

It’s Wholesale Robbery!

The latest inflation news was glorious, they said. The whole media told us so!

It’s easing, improving, better than it has been and headed in the right direction. So stop your kvetching and get out there and make (and spend) money. For that matter, throw around the credit card a bit and stop trying to save money.

Inflation is all but done! It’s pretty interesting because they have been saying this for the better part of 18 months.

In reality, the consumer price index rose 7.1% from a year ago. That’s terrible. Yes, not as terrible as last month, but look at the breakdown in detail.

Food at home is up 10% while food at restaurants is up 12%. Fuel oil is up 65.7 % and transportation services are up 14.2%!

So on it goes, and each month we get a report, and the intensity shifts from one sector to another. The perception that this is cooling is based mostly on the weighting scheme that yields the final number. This is no world in which we are watching the problem gradually disappear.

Wholesale Robbery of the American People

You can see the scale of the problem by looking at the so-called sticky rate of price increases over 14 years. This reveals which part of the overall index is truly embedded and less subject to exigencies of temporary market change.

This is wholesale robbery of the American people. That the thief stole a full place setting of silver last month but this month left the dessert spoon is hardly an improvement and a case for leaving the doors unlocked.

They’ve told us for 18 months that it’s not so bad and we should all stop kvetching about it. But it keeps being bad. The inflation is embedded and clearly has a long way to go before the momentum runs out of steam.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Chapter 2: Laws That Make Robbery Legal.

January 28, 2019

CHAPTER 2: LAWS THAT MAKE ROBBERY LEGAL.

A law can be anything from an attempt to establish justice on earth to a device for robbery and murder.[1] Nazi race law was an example of the latter. Most people pay lip service to the idea that laws should be just; but in fact, laws are often made to favour the powerful. Laws supporting slavery and laws favouring men over women are two examples of that.[2]

Today, thousands of lobbyists spend untold amounts of money each year influencing lawmakers on behalf of their (usually corporate) paymasters. Many of the new laws they promote would not be called ‘just’ by most of us – if we knew about them. But how many voters keep an eye on new laws, to check if they are just?[3]

This chapter describes how banks became authorised in law to create money, as part of the age-old practice of ruling classes writing laws to suit themselves.

Laws allowing money (and other value) to be created as debt are surely the most unjust laws generally in force today. These laws are actually very simple, but very few people know about them, and their injustice is not often talked about. People who benefit from them prefer to ignore them – and prefer it if other people don’t talk about them either.[4]

These laws simply establish that debt can be bought and sold as if it is a commodity, like beef or beans. The legal word for this is, they make debt ‘negotiable’.[5]

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Taxation Is Robbery

February 3, 2018

Taxation Is Robbery

theft-300x210[This article was originally published in 1947 as a pamphlet from Human Events Associates. It was reprinted in 1962 as chapter 22 of of Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist.] Mises.org

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines taxation as “that part of the revenues of a state which is obtained by the compulsory dues and charges upon its subjects.” That is about as concise and accurate as a definition can be; it leaves no room for argument as to what taxation is.

In that statement of fact the word “compulsory” looms large, simply because of its ethical content. The quick reaction is to question the “right” of the state to this use of power. What sanction, in morals, does the state adduce for the taking of property? Is its exercise of sovereignty sufficient unto itself?

On this question of morality there are two positions, and never the twain will meet. Those who hold that political institutions stem from “the nature of man,” thus enjoying vicarious divinity, or those who pronounce the state the keystone of social integrations, can find no quarrel with taxation per se; the state’s taking of property is justified by its being or its beneficial office. On the other hand, those who hold to the primacy of the individual, whose very existence is his claim to inalienable rights, lean to the position that in the compulsory collection of dues and charges the state is merely exercising power, without regard to morals.

The present inquiry into taxation begins with the second of these positions. It is as biased as would be an inquiry starting with the similarly unprovable proposition that the state is either a natural or a socially necessary institution. Complete objectivity is precluded when an ethical postulate is the major premise of an argument and a discussion of the nature of taxation cannot exclude values.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Houston Reeling Amid Outbreak Of Looting, Armed Robberies; Vigilantees Emerge

August 30, 2017

Houston Reeling Amid Outbreak Of Looting, Armed Robberies; Vigilantees Emerge

Inevitably every major metropolitan crisis brings out the best and worst of what humanity has to offer.  While hundreds/thousands of people have rushed into Houston following the epic destruction of Hurricane Harvey to help in any way possible, others have once again predictably chosen to exploit the misery of others by looting abandoned shopping centers, robbing empty homes and even breaking into the Houston Apple Store (by shooting through the front door).

The Venture @EGMNVenture

The doors to a flooded @Apple Store in appear to have been shot at with a firearm. Looters have been rampant.

In fact, just last night Houston’s Mayor was forced to impose a strict midnight to 5am curfew amid “an outbreak of looting and armed robberies“, in order to prevent property crimes against evacuated homes in the city.  As Reuters notes, the curfew came after, among other things, reports surfaced of people impersonating police officers all so they could tell residents to evacuate their homes and then promptly rob them blind.

That proved too little for county officials who set up their own location as an outbreak of looting and armed robberies prompted the city to order an indefinite curfew from midnight to 5 a.m. (0500 to 1000 GMT).

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said late Tuesday individuals impersonating police officers knocked on doors in at least two parts of the city telling residents to evacuate their homes.

Sylvester Turner ✔@SylvesterTurner

Imposing curfew from 10 pm to 5 am to stop any property crimes against evacuated homes in city limits.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Introduction: Bank-Money

December 3, 2015

Introduction: Bank-Money

‘BANK ROBBERY’ is not a book about how to rob a bank: it’s about how banks rob us. The title sounds a bit sensationalist: perhaps people think it’s not meant to be taken too seriously. Banks don’t actually rob us, surely: they provide a service – even if they do charge too much, and behave badly when they think they can get away with it.

But actually, the title is to be taken literally. Robbery means ‘theft backed up by violence, or by threat of violence’. The theft in banking is that banks create money out of nothing for the use of themselves and selected others: the overall effect of this is a continual transfer of assets from the rest of us to governments and a financial elite. The violence, or threat of violence, is what the state may use, to back up the rule of law: in this case, to enforce the laws that allow banks to create money.

It’s obvious to most people that if there is to be a functioning rule of law, the State must be able to use force when necessary to back it up. So it’s our responsibility, as citizens and voters, to make sure that the laws are just. In the West, we tend to assume that if an unjust law does exist it will soon be changed, because public opinion will not put up with it.

There have been many unjust laws in our history: the Corn Laws, laws supporting the slave trade, laws about who is entitled to vote, laws about the property rights of married women are a few examples. Many of these unjust laws lasted for generations before they were changed or repealed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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